When Hope Is Lost
by taintedcupcakes
Summary: A tragic accident leads to Amelia waking up from a coma and has memory loss. Matthew and Ivan are by her side, thankfully, but how will she deal with her newly-lost sense: sight? Human names used and a sucky summary. Rated M for future themes. Please review!


_White. _

_It surrounded her._

_White. _

_It blinded her. _

_This was all she could see at this point. There was no color, but a simple blinding ray of light. Amelia could only describe the color to be white, as white and black were the only colors she had ever known. There wasn't a single shade other than the same blinding white light she had seen when she opened her eyes for the first time, and now she was seeing it again. _

_Only one thought entered her mind at this moment in time: was she dying?_

_She had heard of many accounts from those that had died and come back or had near-death experiences. They would see a white light and several hands reaching toward them, or wings wrapping around their waists and pulling them forward, or simply a white light and nothing else. There would be no color, no sound, no feeling, and no smell. It would have just been their sense of sight that was there to guide them, and they were forced to take advantage of this. _

_And now, this was all Amelia could think of. _

_Death. The sound of the word echoing through her mind seemed unnaturally comforting to her, and this was what scared her the most as she searched for another person, for another shade of color, for something she could hold onto as she felt something pulling her away from where she was now. _

_She looked down. _

_What was that?_

_She wasn't even standing on anything. Her feet were dangling beneath her, but just as she began to contemplate over what she was standing on—if she was standing, for that manner—something brushed against her ankles and she screamed. _

_A hand pressed against her mouth, and then she felt cool liquid seeping down her throat. It tasted metallic, and that was when she realized she had bitten into the hand over her mouth. The figure standing before her gasped and glanced down at their hand, and then smacked her across the face with the back of their other hand. _

"_Amelia!"_

_She turned around, but saw nothing. Who was calling her name?_

"_Amelia, wake up!"_

_Her heart was pounding within her chest now. Someone was calling her name, but there was no one there to call her. It was only white light. The other person had left her standing on thin air. _

"_Idiot, she can't hear you." A new voice called. _

_That voice, it was a second person. The voices were almost too familiar, and it was causing the crown of her brow to ache persistently. _

_Suddenly, her body was being lifted from where she had been standing. Amelia began to struggle. She thrashed her arms and clenched her fists. She punched and kicked at the air around her in effort to escape the clutches of whatever force was pulling her out of her state of peace. The white light around her was comforting, and she felt no pain in this stage. _

"_Amelia," the first voice called softly, and she instantly lifted her chin and stopped fighting the force around her. "I know you can hear me."_

_Tears began to trickle down the sides of her cheeks as she desperately tried to escape from the force that was pulling her toward an even brighter light. Someone needed her. They wanted her back on their side, but what side was that? What side was she on? She didn't know, but she was yearning for an answer to that question. _

_She opened her mouth to call out to whomever was calling her name, but all that came out was a scream. She couldn't form any words other than screams. She screamed for as long as she could muster, until her throat was raw and liquid was trickling down the back of it again. It was likely blood from having screamed for so long, but she didn't care. She wanted those that were talking to her to know she was alive—or at least she thought she was—and that she wanted to get out. _

_Who were they? How did they know her? _

_But just as she began to cry again, something grasped her wrist. Another grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her relentlessly. _

"_Wake up!" They shouted together. _

_And she did. _

She choked on her saliva as she opened her eyes. Arms were instantly around her and she was pressured into a tight embrace.

"I thought you were dead." A voice whispered into her hair. "Don't ever do that again. Do you know how much you frightened me?" The voice was hoarse, likely from calling her name over and over again when she was in that mysterious place. She didn't know what to call it at this point, only that she had nearly died and that someone was holding onto her. Someone was worried about her.

A sigh of relief escaped from the lips of the person in front of her. She could hear them, but her eyes were still closed. Amelia, though as stubborn as she was, had to admit that she was frightened by the idea of opening her eyes and seeing only white light again. And though she could fell the sheets she was lying on top of and the arms around her body and could smell the sharp scent of the hospital she was within, she still felt breathless.

It was almost as if she were still floating, as she had felt when she was in that one place.

"Amelia?" The voice asked.

She decided it would be best to test her voice. "Yes?" She tried, but still kept her eyes closed as she spoke. She was still terrified of not being able to see, and she was going to take one sense at a time.

The arms were wrapped around her waist again and she was pulled into yet another embrace. "Oh, thank God." The person murmured and pressed his lips against the side of her neck. She felt tears dripping down the nape of her neck, but she was in no place to complain.

"Who are you?"

The moment she opened her mouth to ask such a question, Amelia knew she would feel the person stiffen. And they did. The arms left her waist and the lips disappeared from where they had been pressed against her neck. "What?" The man asked, his voice stern and confused. He should have been able to understand that she was waking up from a near-death experience—that was what Amelia was calling it, as she had no idea what had happened to her—and was likely experiencing short-term memory loss from this. Apparently, the person didn't understand and was utterly shocked by her confusion.

"I asked who you were." She said simply.

He breathed a sigh. "Open your eyes, Amelia."

"I—"She began, but her voice cracked. "I am scared to open my eyes, sir."

Honestly, she was more than scared at the idea of her vision having failed. She couldn't see anything other than white light when she was in that strange place moments before now, and she could vaguely recall an accident in which she had been injured. The memory was vague and consisted only of people yelling at her, distorted images of objects hitting her face and figures lumbering over her body, and blood. But that was it. There was no other clue as to how she ended up in a hospital bed or in a coma.

"Open your eyes." The man commanded. His voice was sterner than it had been when she asked him who he was, but now his tone of voice sent shivers trailing along the length of her spine.

Nevertheless, she nodded and swallowed nervously.

And then, she opened her eyes.

It took a few seconds to open them, of course. Her hands were shaking and every hair on her body was standing on end. Normally, she wouldn't have admitted this to anyone, but Amelia was scared out of her mind. But an order was an order, and she didn't want to disappoint whomever was asking her to open her eyes. When she did open her eyes, though, she screamed.

"I can't see anything!" She shouted.

Truth be told, she knew this would happen. She knew it was likely that she would die, or that she was close to death, and that she would have lost one of her senses when she came to. For her, it was sight. From the moment she opened her eyes for the first time, she had been introduced to color. The three acres of forest behind her house had been a dark green, the evening sky had been a range of pastel blues and purples, the moist soil had been chocolate-brown, her hair had been as golden as the wheat fields that her uncle had grown for years, and the leaves had been scarlet when autumn came along. But now, everything was black.

Just, black. It wasn't like black-and-white television where there were different shades of black and white. Everything was simply black. She couldn't make out any figures, or see the sunlight peering through the ajar window, or the curve of the shoulder she was crying on; everything was black.

"I'm scared." She mumbled as more tears flowed from her eyes. Never had she thought she would admit this out loud, but she did. And even the man she was embracing—or, to be more truthful, the man whom was embracing _her_—became stiff at the sound of these words being uttered from her plump lips.

And it wasn't a lie this time. She had told many people that she was brave during situations where even the toughest of figures would have been so frightened that they would have pissed their pants, when in reality, she was absolutely terrified. She had lied about being scared to settle the worrisome feelings of others around her in situations where being brave was rare. This time, you could hear the truth in her words. Amelia was sincere.

"Sir," She whispered, afraid that her voice would crack if she said anything in a tone above a whisper. "I'm scared." She repeated with a sniffle.

A large hand patted her on the top of the head and two arms pulled her into a tighter embrace. There was a second person in the room; she could feel his presence and hear his heart racing within his chest. But who he was, she did not know.

"I'm here for you, Amelia." The man said as he embraced her.

She sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "I don't even know who you are."

Silence greeted her yet again.

More than anything, Amelia hated silence. While she was afraid of her blindness, she was also afraid of the silence that surrounded her now. When she had the sense of sight, she was able to glance at the other's face to see their expression in moments where there was awkward silence, or simply silence in general. She would use this advantage to determine what they were thinking, but now, she had no advantage. She had read about others who would touch another's face in order to distinguish their expression or to recognize them, but she didn't feel comfortable with doing that at the moment.

The people in the room were strangers to her, and they probably didn't like another touching their faces. Even if she was blind, she was a stranger. They were strangers to her, but it seemed that they knew her on a personal level. The man knew her name and had embraced her the moment she opened her eyes. Had he known her before she went into a coma? The question echoed within her mind, but she received no answer.

"Ivan," The man said, pulling Amelia out of her thoughts. "My name is Ivan and I am your best friend. I guess you're experiencing amnesia." He breathed a heavy sigh and lifted his hand to caress Amelia's cheek as though she were a child.

Amelia nodded in agreement, though she wasn't exactly understanding what he was saying. She could understand having memory loss, but the man before her was supposedly her best friend. How could she have forgotten her best friend? But she didn't bother asking, as the question seemed irrelevant to the current situation.

"Yes," a new voice chimed. Amelia guessed that this was the second person in the room. "Memory loss is very common upon waking up from a coma. It usually lasts a few weeks to a couple of months, but it varies within every individual and with the seriousness of the accident."

"Is that the doctor?" she asked.

Ivan and the other person chuckled at her question, but she simply sat there with a confused expression upon her face.

The person stepped forward and placed a hand on Amelia's shoulder. It was much smaller than Ivan's hand had been, and she guessed it was because the man before her was younger. "No, Amelia." He sighed and shook his head, though she couldn't have seen it. She could tell he was shaking his head from the sounds of his hair swishing from side to side. "I'm your younger brother, Matthew."

Amelia tilted her head to the side in confusion. "I have a brother?" She asked with a childish tone.

"Yes," Ivan stated as he reached over to hold Amelia's hand. He had seen her shaking before, and thought it would be comforting for her to have her hand held by her best friend. "You are older than him by three years." He said.

She nodded.

Amelia wasn't hesitant as Ivan took her hand into his. She desired comfort at this moment, and the feeling of having her fingers intertwined with another was lowering her levels of paranoia. Though she could not see him, she knew that Ivan was smiling as he rested his head on her shoulder. The hospital bed dipped with the weight of another person sitting beside her, likely Matthew, and another head rested on her other shoulder. She guessed Matthew was smiling, too. She could recall him shouting for her to wake up and him telling Ivan that she hadn't been going to awake from her coma, but she did. She felt content with the idea of her best friend and younger brother being beside her after such a traumatic experience, but one thought dawned in the back of her mind.

"Hey," She began and felt the others begin to stir around her at the sound of her voice. "What happened that put me into this situation?"


End file.
